The Traherns #1

by Nancy Radke

  My spirits sunk. It didn’t sound like I had much of a chance then, after sending her away from me. Demanding she leave. And not offering her anything for coming back and doctoring Mickey.

  Wylie gave the shelf a final wipe and stepped away from it. “She needed money. Her pa has been out of work, all busted up like. Being a doctor he’s to the stage where he can take care of himself, but they needed food on the table. She came in yesterday and bought some flour and some sugar.”

  I felt like a heel. “Where does she live?”

  “You go south on this road for a mile. You’ll see a red mailbox with a white cross painted on it. That’s the doctor’s box. Go down that lane and you’ll find the house.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll have your order ready when you get back.”

  I nodded. Turned to leave.

  “You need a woman out there, you know. And not just working for you. You need a wife.”

  What was it in the air in this part of Oregon? Everyone trying to marry me off?

  “Was that why you sent her?” I asked.

  “Mainly. Her pa is the son of Charlie Web. I knew Charlie, years ago. He led a wagon train over the Oregon trail. I was only seven and he was the biggest thing in my life. If I can help his son or granddaughter, I’ll do it any day.”

  “Thank you.”

  “She’s the stubbornest girl in the valley, but she’d make you a fine wife,” he said. "She finishes what she starts."

  I smiled and walked outside. A young boy rode up, leading two pack animals behind him. I nodded to him and climbed into my buckboard.

  So Samantha Web was a hard catch. And would make a fine wife.

  I had planned on just driving up and telling her that I’d like for her to come back to the ranch, as my wife. But that didn’t sound so effective any more. I had figured if she told me, “No,” it wasn’t a big loss. But if she was in the habit of sending suitors away, I had better rethink my approach.

  I clicked up the team to a good trot down the road, found the mailbox Wylie had told me about, and turned in. The doctor had a small house at the end of the lane, with several sheds and corrals next to it. There were different animals in the corrals, sheep, goats, and cattle.

  I pulled up and stopped next to a tall, three-wheeled vehicle. It had two large, wide, cleated metal wheels in the back and one slightly smaller metal wheel in the front. It looked like it could go through mud and snow and crawl over any obstacle. I’d never seen such a contraption. My team hadn’t either, and stood snorting and acting like they wanted to run away.

  A middle-aged man hobbled out of the house.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello.”

  “Do you need a doctor?”

  “No, I’ve come to see Samantha. I’m Barnabas Trahern.”

  “She’s up in the mountains with a sick cow, right now, needing to bring her back. I’m getting ready to go there. Sure could use your help. My leg’s still not strong enough for what we might have to do.”

  “Of course. Do you want to ride with me?”

  He shook his head. “No. I need to take the stock wagon. Put your team in the holding corral over there. They’ll be all right until we get back.”

  I unhitched them, then joined him by a flatbed wagon with stock racks on it.

  “Back that tractor over here,” he said, pointing at the three-wheeled monster. “We’ll hitch up and get going.”

  “I’ve never driven a tractor,” I said. “Maybe you should drive.”

  “Hard for me. Hurts my leg to push on the pedals for any length of time. It’s a tractor that thinks it’s a truck. I use it when I have to go on vet calls. Sometimes an animal has to be transported. So I take this, with the wagon hitched to it.”

  “And you think I can drive that?”

  “Yes. It drives like a truck. Pulls anything. Goes anywhere. I got it from a freighter. I sometimes get in with the sick animal while Sam drives us back here. My clinic is out behind the house.”

  I walked over and climbed up into the driver’s seat and looked at the row of four pedals on the floor. I named them off to myself, remembering the order. Clutch, brake, gas, and starter. They were made of metal and worn smooth from use.

  It had a standard “H” gear shift. I found the throttle and pulled it all the way out, then turned the key. I put my right foot on the brake and gas pedal and the left one on the clutch. Then I shifted my right foot over enough to reach the starter and pressed down on it.

  The engine turned over, then quit, so I tried again.

  “Just give it half throttle,” the doctor called.

  I pushed the throttle halfway in and tried again. The third time the motor started, and I shoved the throttle all the way in. I put it in first gear, but let the clutch out too fast, jerked it several times, and killed the motor.

  I put the clutch back in and started it again, this time waiting for the motor to warm up a little bit, while I tried to remember how to drive. I’d learned when I bought my car, but it was many years newer than this truck, and easier to operate.

  As I eased off the clutch, I needed to shift my foot from the brake to the gas. I just had to do it all at the same time.

  “It sounds like you have it in second gear,” the doctor said. “First is over and up. Just don’t go too far over, cause that’s reverse.”

  I rabbit-jumped it several times before I got it to run smoothly. Then I drove the contraption over to him.

  “Turn it around and back it up here.”

  I did so, remembering where he had said reverse was on the gearshift.

  He lifted the wagon tongue and I aimed for that, coming pretty close. He seemed either brave or foolish, expecting me to not run him over, going backwards. I managed to get fairly close, then put it in neutral and set the brake.

  I climbed down and helped him hitch the wagon. He climbed in and sat down in the passenger seat, which had been welded behind the driver’s seat.

  “Turn right out of my drive and head towards the mountains. We’ll turn off just past a cluster of three mailboxes on the left.”

  I started the tractor up and drove carefully down the lane, remembering at the last minute to pull out wide enough to clear the wagon as it followed. Once out on the road, I changed to second, then third. I didn’t know if I should try to put it in fourth gear or not, since the road started to climb up into the foothills.

  “Why don’t you use horses on your calls?” I asked.

  “It’s hard on them. Sometimes, in an emergency, I’d almost kill my horse racing to save a life. I decided, as the roads got better, that I wouldn’t worry about killing a car. Also, it doesn’t need feeding if you don’t use it for several weeks. The tractor runs on diesel, and I have a tank by the barn for it. The car takes gas. It had to be towed home by a team of horses once, but that was after I got to the farmhouse in time to do emergency surgery.”

  “So they didn’t laugh.”

  “Nope. What for did you come to see Sam about?”

  “To pay her for doctoring Mickey.”

  “That’s good news. Most people don’t bother paying. They offer me a chicken or a pig.”

  I laughed. “You can’t buy much gas with chickens.”

  “No, but they sure are tasty.”

  “Sam said you had a horse fall on you.”

  “That wouldn’t have been too bad. It was a draft horse, and he kicked me, and then slipped and fell on me. I was trapped between him and the side of the stall and couldn’t get out of the way. Here’s the turnoff.” He pointed past the mailboxes.

  I shifted down to second to make the turn, then left it in second when I looked at where we were going to travel.

  The lane going back into the ranches was less than a road, rather it was a challenge.

  The water had washed down it in succeeding winters, taking away the soil. It had never been fixed, so the road was a series of three-foot-deep ruts and big rocks.

  The tractor’s t
wo-foot-wide back wheels and the even wider front wheel just rode on top of the ruts, climbed the rocks, and pulled that wagon behind it in spite of where it thought it wanted to go. My team could have made it, but not at the speed the tractor did, and I doubted they would have been able to pull the wagon through the ruts.

  “Does Sam drive this rig?” I shouted to the doctor.

  “Yes. She’s good at it. It gets even steeper up ahead. You’ll need to put it in first gear.”

  The tractor bounced and jumped as it clawed its way upward, almost throwing us off our seats.

  There was no telephone line going up the mountain that I could see. “How did you know Sam needed the wagon?” I asked.

  “Rancher sent his son down to tell me. The kid went on in for supplies.”

  “I saw him. He was just getting to the store as I left. I see why he had pack animals.”

  We got to the top of the ridge and the road both smoothed out and leveled out. It joined a ridge road that looked well traveled.

  I put the tractor into fourth and we rolled along at a good clip.

  I pointed ahead, at a small wisp of smoke rising above the forest.

  “Is that the ranch house?”

  “No. It’s over to the left, in a large meadow. See. The sunlight reflects off the windows.”

  I looked at where he was pointing, and then back at the smoky wisp. It was bigger now.

  “Forest fire,” the doctor said. “Not in the treetops yet. We may have a chance to put it out. Go faster.”

  I pushed down hard on the gas and the monster responded with a roar, clanking along the roadway.

  We were getting close to the fire when we came upon a group of twelve people carrying shovels and axes. Sam was one of them.

  They separated as I drove up and stopped. Then they piled into the wagon and hung on.

  I didn’t go quite as fast, not wanting to throw them off their feet, but I made it move.

  “Stop here,” the doctor said as we reached the fire line.

  Everyone jumped off and ran toward the fire, which was now beginning to spread.

  “Back up, just enough to loosen the hitch,” the doctor said. “Take the wagon off.”

  I did so, jumping down to pull the pin.

  “Now, take the cable that I use to pull dead animals, and throw it around that short log there.”

  The cable had a hook on the end, and I worked it around the log and hooked it to itself.

  The doctor had climbed into the driver’s seat. He waved and drove off, up ahead of where the fire was going.

  “What’s he doing?” I shouted to Samantha, as I ran up to her and grabbed the axe she handed to me.

  “He’s going to drag a firebreak for us. I only hope he doesn’t turn the tractor over.”

  “Or get caught by the fire,” I added.

  The smoke was thick and swirling, but we had no wind to speak of. The Indians used to burn the underbrush before it got thick, and while the woods were still wet. Nowadays the cattle kept the brush from accumulating and feeding the fire.

  The men had followed the doctor, and were cutting down trees ahead of the fire and throwing dirt on the oncoming flames.

  Samantha and I and a young boy were on one side, keeping it from spreading sideways. One tree exploded as the fire reached the lower branches, then the pitch-soaked and dry upper branches.

  “Leave it,” Sam called. “Get the one next to it.”

  They were small trees, and I chopped the next one down, fast, then another one near it, then went back and chopped down the burning tree. Sam and the boy used their shovel to put out the flames.

  We worked well as a team, and I stayed near Sam, keeping my eye on her, so was able to run over and beat her on the back when a falling ember set her shirt on fire. She looked at me, puzzled.

  “You were on fire,” I said.

  “Oh. Thanks.” And she kept on resolutely shoveling dirt on the flames.

  Then I stepped into a hole and my leg went under a burning stump.

  “Ahhh!” I yelled, throwing myself down as I tried to get away from it.

  Sam was there, throwing a shovelful of dirt on the fire and my leg, then grabbing my arm and helping me pull my foot out.

  “Thanks.” I had barely avoided being burned.

  “Over there,” I said, pointing at another tree starting to burn. If we could keep the fire confined to the ground, we’d be able to stop it.

  Her father kept dragging the log back and forth, digging a small ditch into the dirt each time he passed through, making the firebreak wider and wider. The men cut down the trees next to it, and pulled them across the break. One rancher ran toward the fire and started a line of small fires, allowing them to burn back to the break, clearing even more combustibles as they did so.

  It was getting dark, almost ten at night, when we got it under control. I looked at Sam, her face black with soot and sweat. She was beautiful.

  Her father and another man had taken the tractor off the mountain around an hour ago. It came clattering back up to the fire area, pulling a small water tank behind it. The tank was on skids, and they couldn’t bring it in real close, but it was there, and we all went and got us a drink. I don’t know how clean it was, as it was made for cattle, but I don’t think anyone cared. They had buckets, and we filled these with water and walked through the burned area, pouring water on the hot spots. In some places we had to dig up the roots that continued to smolder and put dirt and water on them.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired. I looked at Sam. She had her mouth set and was still working away, but her legs were wobbly. I know because she couldn’t get over a small log, and fell to her knees.

  “Sam!” I ran over and helped her up.

  “I’m okay,” she said, as I continued to hold onto her.

  “Let the men finish this. They can do the mopping up.”

  She looked up at me. “I should help.”

  “You should quit, so that your father will quit. Both of you need to go home and rest.”

  “His leg! He was driving the tractor!” All concerned now, she glanced around for him. We walked back to where the water tank was. It was empty and the doctor was getting ready to make another trip back to the farmhouse. He’d done several already, as soon as we emptied each tank.

  “I’ll do that,” I told him. “I just need someone to show me where to go. You rest that leg.”

  “Take Sam. She knows.”

  “Are you all right, Dad?”

  “Just need to rest, Sam. It’s aching, but that’s all. You go help Barnabas.”

  She climbed in with me. I started the monster up, turned it around and drove down the mountain to the ranch home. It was not far from where we had picked the group up in the first place.

  “How did you get here?” I asked as we clattered along.

  “I drove the car.”

  “Up that road?”

  “No. There’s a long way around on the road that follows the ridges. It’s almost fifty miles by the mountain road. That lane is a shortcut, only used by horseback. It’s why they don’t maintain it.”

  We got to the farm and found that the grandfather of the family who lived there had been busy filling up another tank. We three pulled off the empty one, used the cable to pull on the full one, and then pulled the empty one over to where he could pump water into it again. So this was why we seemed to have a constant supply of water.

  “How are you doing?” I asked him.

  “Better than you, looks like. I rest as I go along, as I can easily fill this before you come back.”

  I climbed up into the tractor’s cab and Sam started to come, too.

  “Why don’t you stay here with him, Sam? I’ll unhitch this and put on the stock wagon and bring everyone back next time. You’re about to drop, and won’t do your father any good if you get injured.”

  She looked up at me. I could see her considering my words. “They’ll need someone to stay there and watch, tonight
.”

  “Two of the men can do it. They can keep each other awake. You rest here. And don’t you drive the car until you’ve had some sleep first. You can take your father home while I bring the wagon back.”

  She nodded. “Yes. You’re right. We still have to bring the cow back.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “It looks like she has an eye infection. Either that or she’s injured it. I want to keep her where we can watch her and take care of it. I don’t want to have to come up this mountain road every day.”

  I drove back up the mountain, no longer having trouble driving the tractor. If Sam and her father could manage to drive it, then so could I.

  I took up two more loads of water, bringing her father back the first time and then the stock wagon back with most of the rest the second time. They set up shifts of two men to ride up on their horses every three hours, while they made sure the fire didn’t start up again. Going back to the fire’s beginning, the rancher found a bottle that had been thrown into the tall grass by the road. He also found a cigarette stub nearby, and figured it was one or the other. It was three a.m. by the time we finished, already getting light.

  We loaded the cow onto the low stock wagon. She didn’t like the ramp, and jumped in instead.

  “You’ll have to drive down the long way,” Sam told me. “The cow won’t be able to stand up, going down the short-cut. Turn right when you reach the main road.”

  The farmer thanked us and we drove away, the car leaving me behind in a cloud of dust.

  I clanked along, headed back down the mountain, doing fine until the motor coughed and died. With all the driving back and forth, the doctor had used up the diesel. I turned off the key and climbed off the tractor.

  Walking around it, I found a gas can, but it was empty. The doctor must have already used it during the fire.

  Picking it up, I started walking down the road. I was fairly close to the valley floor, and got to the main road in under two hours, at around six in the morning. I saw a horse and buggy coming, so sat down on the can and waited.

  “Hello, young feller,” the old man said as he pulled his horse to a stop. “You look like you’ve been through the wars.”

  “We had a fire up on the ridge. I ran out of gas coming back. Could you take me to the nearest station?”